Saturday, February 27, 2010

What is Man that the Genome is Mindful of Him?

Well, time for one more post before I take off. Don't tell the new readers that it's a repost from last year...

In Wolfgang Smith's The Wisdom of Ancient Cosmology, he discusses the distinction between the corporeal world -- i.e., the real human world that we can see, touch, hear, and taste -- vs. the merely physical world that is abstracted from the former.

The corporeal universe is "the world to which human sense perception gives access. And this is indeed our world; the world in which we find ourselves. This corporeal universe, moreover, is in fact the only objective world which our human faculties -- sensory and mental -- allow us to know."

In contrast, the physical universe is the "described universe," as seen through the lenses of our abstract descriptions. It is at least once removed from the corporeal world, and is irreducibly subjective.

Take, for example, the subatomic world: is it composed of waves or particles? It all depends upon how we look at it, or the questions we ask. Science is a systematic way to interrogate nature, so nature, like any good witness, will give its answers in conformity to the question.

Or, you could say that a scientific theory is like a net that we cast out over the ocean of being. It will catch certain facts, while others will either slip through the net or tear it to shreds. And others facts are swimming so deep below the surface, that the net can't extend that far (to say nothing of the winged facts that soar and glide in the atmansphere above).

Smith says what amounts to the same thing: "The physicist, it turns out, is not simply an observer, but a creator of secondary realities: he observes by creating, one could almost say."

However, this is not creation ex nihilo; it doesn't mean, as many new agers suggest, that the world is somehow entirely subjective, and that we "create reality" through perception. Rather, it is a much more subtle process, which I believe is most adequately described by Michael Polanyi, in particular, by his theory of tacit knowing and the distinction between subsidiary and focal knowledge.

Timelessness doesn't permit me a full evasion this morning, but Polanyi beautifully explains how scientific progress is only possible because of the human ability to simultaneously discover and create the world.

It sounds paradoxical, but it really isn't. Our scientific abstractions are analogous to the cane of a blind man, which he uses to "probe the dark" and construct a model of his surroundings. In so doing, where is the reality: in the solid matter touched by the cane, or the model he tacitly constructs in his head? Obviously it's a kind of dialectic, an ongoing interaction between the two. But the blind man obviously doesn't pay conscious attention the bare sensation of the cane against his hand. Rather, those sensations become (subsidiary) support for the (focal) interior map he creates.

Does this mean there are two worlds, or that our corporeal world is somehow an "effect" of the physical world? Think about it. Physicists describe a subatomic world that is shockingly different than the corporeal world, so much so that it is difficult, if not impossible, to see how they relate. To cite one obvious example, the simple act of willing my hand to make a fist has causes all the subatomic particles that supposedly constitute my hand to alter their courses, in such a way that the relatively crude model of physics is powerless to account for how it happens.

But the problem is only a result of a reductionism that inverts the cosmos and conflates the physical and corporeal worlds -- as if the quantum world is corporeal and not simply an abstraction. But "all knowledge of the external world begins in the perceptible realm: deny the perceptible object, and nothing external remains.... Contrary to what we have been taught in schools and universities, real tables are not 'made of molecules'" (Smith). No one can actually surf on a wave function, any more than you can feel the intentions of a selfish gene.

Now, what goes for physics goes for biology. Obviously, Darwinism does not explain man; rather, I think we can all agree that man explains Darwinism. That much is self-evident, except perhaps to metaphysical Darwinians, who put the genetic cart before the organismic horse, i.e., the physical before the corporeal. Humans are no more "made of genes" than this table is "made of atoms" or my consciousness is "made of neurons." Ironically, consciousness is not just "part" of the corporeal world, but its very essence, for what could be more concrete than awareness of your own being? You are fundamentally aware of being, not electrons or genes.

Once we invert the cosmos and reinstate our proper orientation, we understand its Reason. As DeKoninck writes, "The being in which resides the end of the cosmos must be both immobile and cosmic; both spirit and matter must be found in it, its essence must be composed of a spiritual principle which integrates the cosmos."

Thus, "Man is manifestly the raison d'être of the whole of nature," the "end of all possible natural forms." Indeed, "every natural form tends toward man." Furthermore, "nature could not be ordered to God except through man. God being the end of the universe, it is necessary that the universe be capable of a return to its Universal Principle. But only an intellectual creature is capable of such a return.... In other words, only a creature capable of making a tour of being can return to the source of being" (emphasis mine). So,

Life is the meaning of matter, that to which matter points and converges upon. Similarly, Mind is the meaning of Life, that to which it points. And now we realize the meaning of our very existence, that to which it has always been pointing and converging upon: the Unity of Reality. Once again, by turning the cosmos upside down, ultimate meaning is found not at its material base but its immaterial summit.... Only then do we find out what we are made of -- a Divine substance that has returned to itSelf, even though it never really left in the first place. --The Book of Toots

47 Comments:

If your melon is encrusted with decades of postmodern academic and/or popular scientistic mush these deep insights will sound like gibberish. You can't really blame the trolls for their reactions, however you can blame the ones who won't even entertain the possibility that there are higher levels of reasoning which they have not yet realized exist, much less experienced.

That's the frustrating thing about trolls and atheists -- they walk into a place where people have put a lot of effort into refining their comprehension of deep reality and commit the intellectual equivalent of letting off a stink bomb in class, and believing that when the room clears due to the stench they've "won the argument".

Stink bombs d' trolls won't clear out One Cosmos anyway, owing to the sheer tonnage of clarity that sloughs off the posts, which provides a surfeit of "fresh air" that is freely given, as it says above the box.

To oppose the stench, I quote Dogen:"Great assembly, with more than three hundred pieces of empty sky I can buy one branch of plum blossoms at the end of the twelfth month, which, with auspicious clouds at the top of the cliff and the moon above the cold valley, contains spring and warmth promising sounds of laughter."

Obviously, Darwinism does not explain man; rather, I think we can all agree that man explains Darwinism.I think your problem is very visible in the above sentence.

"Explain" is a very stretchy word. Why can't both of your alternatives be true? Darwinism "explains" man (partly), and man "explains" Darwinism (also partly). These aren't mutually exclusive. There isn't some kind of war for explanatory priority between "man" and "Darwinism".

You don't seem very secure in your embrace of "man", or you wouldn't need to spend so much energy defining it in oppositon to "Darwinism". This whole blog seems like the work of a very threatened person, flailing out against science that has mostly been misunderstood.

This whole blog seems like the work of a very threatened person, flailing out against science that has mostly been misunderstood.

You are absolutely correct that this whole blog seems like that to you. Before jumping to conclusions however -- and I'll grant you that without the requisite background some things said here will seem odd indeed -- it just may be worth your time to find out what is actually being said. And for the record, this blog has probably done more to promote and admire bona fide science than most blogs today.

One thing about real science from the very start: it is the critical to challenge theories at every opportunity. Nothing could be further from the genuine scientific spirit than the execrable spectacle of criminal-minded socialist thugs claiming "global warming science is settled".

Compared to that particular modern stench, this blog is a breath of fresh air.

All that said, your original question is perfectly legitimate. Maybe another raccoon can address it -- I have to run...

Darwin's observations are brilliant, and an original (with Wallace) and valuable contribution to science, but they leave an ontologihole so big that the Darwininsts cannot even see that it's there. Natural selection and all its variants that have been concocted to fill in for the missing physical evidence can speak only to living or once living organisms that already exist.

Absolutely nothing in Darwin's work and in any research that has followed up to the present day has one iota of evidence concerning the origin of life - the transition from chemistry to life. Neither is there any theory that can even begin to explain how the proteins necessary for life get organized in the only one precise pattern that can work. A pattern that has a 10 to a google number of occurring at random.

Darwinism fails utterly as a foundation for social or moral theory because there ain't nothing there.

Case A: You receive a revelation from Heaven, which either no one has had before or at least they never told you.

Case B: Someone else shares a revelation they have had. After listening to them (or reading them), the revelation comes fully alive to you.

It may seem at a glance that only one of these is a "direct revelation", but this is in fact wrong. Conscientious observers will notice that you can share a revelation in great detail, and some people will reject it out of hand, some people will listen politely but fail to understand what you say, some people will get it in a theoretical way and be able to transmit it to others like some kind of textbook entry. At the very best, people may actually act according to your revelation and avoid some disaster. But in neither case is it possible for you to actually transmit a revelation. It can not be bought or sold, only born.

This is why putting a lot of energy into the transmission is pointless. It will either take root or it won't, and this is a matter between Heaven and that person.

In other words, all revelation is direct revelation. Anything less is mere knowledge. Not necessarily a bad thing, but an entirely different realm.

Magnus Itland: "In other words, all revelation is direct revelation. Anything less is mere knowledge. Not necessarily a bad thing, but an entirely different realm."

Seeing that I'm one of those idjit fundamentalists, I'm very skeptical about any claim to having a revelation from Heaven. Yet, seeing that I'm one of those idjit fundamentalists, I also don't automatically discount the possibility.

As for knowledge --

All the rational knowledge we do or can ever possess rests, ultimately, upon a foundation of non-rational intuitive knowledge. Reason and rationality are good in and of themselves, but they're not everything. It is wrong -- immoral -- to be irrational or illogical when rationality is called for; but it is also immoral to to make an idol of logic.

Ilíon -That is kind of my point, that there is little need for direct revelation when we already have revelation that was given before. However it must be revealed anew, by coming alive to each of us personally.

You could say that what I call "mere knowledge" is knowledge that does not transform us. To take a Biblical example, the demons know that God is One, but they don't seem to have received any benefit from that knowledge.

Knowledge of this world is not meant to be transformative, as the natural man already belongs to this realm. Knowledge of a higher realm, however, must transform us into its likeness or it is pretty much useless to us. For that to happen it must come alive in us, and that is every bit as much of a revelation as if you heard it from angels. In fact, more so.

About the material world we have recently acquired huge amounts of knowledge, extending to places we did not even know existed: Faraway galaxies, and the microscopic realms and beyond. The knowledge just keeps pouring in.

To believe that we know pretty much all we could know about the realms of mind and spirit, not to mention the Divine, is madness. There is a wealth of knowledge of the higher realms that no one in the world today has, of this I am certain. The sad part is that no one would have any use for it either, for we are still huddled on the beach of the new world. But there is far, far more to know.

Who to talk to, what to say, how to say it, when to say it, what books to read, what changes to your diet or sleep patterns are needed, travel ideas, new hobbies to try, response to problems/issues at work or at home, etc. Those are the kinds of instructions you will be listening for.

All the rational knowledge we do or can ever possess rests, ultimately, upon a foundation of non-rational intuitive knowledge. Reason and rationality are good in and of themselves, but they're not everything. It is wrong -- immoral -- to be irrational or illogical when rationality is called for; but it is also immoral to to make an idol of logic.

Wonderfully concise summation of something virtually no intellectuals today seem to grasp. If they could grasp this there'd be a lot more Raccoons and fewer Dawkinseses.

3. A clean environment without unusual fluctuations in temperature or precipitation patterns.

Americans gravitate towards whatever leadership that seems most likely to ensure these three basic wants will be met. Currently that leadership is the Obama administration and the Democratic party.

Conservatives and Republicans have failed because Americans percieve under conservative rule security is undermined by war-profiteering; that moneyed interests sack and pillage the saving of citizens unchecked; and that moneyed interests despoil the environment and foil climate change reform.

None of these may be true but in politics public opinion is key. If enough people believe it, then you have lost your support base.

To discredit the leftists you will have to convince the people that under leftist rule they will be less secure and prosperous, and they must also believe the left will despoil the enironment even more than the Republicans.

McCain, no conservative he, and no respecter of the Constitution, would have been an unmitigated disaster for constitutional government. Yet conservatives likely would have forborne to oppose him, lest worse policies befall the nation.

With the (alleged) presidency of Our Zero, The Won, and with the control of both Houses in the sweaty grasp of the “liberals,” that particular problem doesn’t arise.

So, if the nation manages to survive the policies of Zero, The Won, and the Democrats, Americans may well be vaccinated for generations against further leftist insanity.

Yes, I suspect McCain would have been no friend of conservatives. But, er, we probably wouldn't be encountering news stories like this one today:

President Barack Obama admitted, in a special Purim interview for Arutz Sheva, that he “frankly does not have a clue” regarding the psychology of the Middle East and that “a three year old child with some experience in nursery-school power politics could probably understand the Middle East better than [he does].” "I really am a space cadet when it comes to Middle East," he said.

"Life is the meaning of matter, that to which matter points and converges upon. Similarly, Mind is the meaning of Life, that to which it points. And now we realize the meaning of our very existence, that to which it has always been pointing and converging upon: the Unity of Reality. Once again, by turning the cosmos upside down, ultimate meaning is found not at its material base but its immaterial summit.... Only then do we find out what we are made of -- a Divine substance that has returned to itSelf, even though it never really left in the first place."

Rings the gong loudly.

Going off the board for 20$ Alex, I'll take Sci-Fi/Fantasy plots, and propose that through the medium of a fourth dimension, the exterior of the cosmic sphere is at the same time the interior center of each individual via the mechanism of Time in three dimensional space.

One and the same, at the same time, depending on your perspective... though as different as particle and wave.

Perched between the micro and the macro, by looking inwards with our blind man's cane we touch the exterior.

I would say Obama is less discredited than Bush. Both are problematic presidents but the recession, bailouts, etc are clearly linked to Bush.

Obama is seen as the inept clean up crew for the mess he inherited.

So, prosperity down is why Republicans lost control.

Security was good under Republicans but public impression was Republicans were creating new enemies with every mis-guided bomb strike and were interested in harming natives and fomenting war so privateers could make a buck. Effective leftist propaganda was responsible for the public holding this erroneous view.

Environment was seen as weak under Republicans.

Those darn glacier before-and after-photos are hard to deal with effectively. The Bush administration should have censored those pictures or restricted access to the affected glaciers. Now the population looks at missing ice, figures it went in the ocean, and viola you have a "crisis." New York will be under water!

So far conservatives have fielded nothing effective to answer to these photos and that is the problem.

The leftists, on the other hand, made a good call and used the photos and people's fear to good advantage.

The best way for conservatives to regain public support is to blame the leftists for the recession reapeatedly until the people forget what happened and think its true. Then, claim security is slipping. If no actual incidents occur, make them up and let the Dems run around trying to put out the fire.

Claim the glacier photos are doctored, and were released by a hostile foreign government in an effort to undermine American overseas commerce.

Ilion said "So, if the nation manages to survive the policies of Zero, The Won, and the Democrats, Americans may well be vaccinated for generations against further leftist insanity."

I wish. See aftermath of Wilson for best parallel. That Inoculation began to wear off within 8 yrs with Hoover, and in four more was vanished with FDR.

Nope, shock and awe is essentially based in nearly perceptual form, little more than stimulus/response... and you can count on that alone for about as long as the American Flags waved from every flagpole after 9/11... then receded as new concerns vied for attention. Such recognized disasters as Wilson, Carter and Obamao may make people step back for a moment in shock, but as Kipling said,

"... As it will be in the future, it was at the birth of ManThere are only four things certain since Social Progress began. That the Dog returns to his Vomit and the Sow returns to her Mire, And the burnt Fool's bandaged finger goes wabbling back to the Fire;

And that after this is accomplished, and the brave new world beginsWhen all men are paid for existing and no man must pay for his sins, As surely as Water will wet us, as surely as Fire will burn, The Gods of the Copybook Headings with terror and slaughter return!"

And no doubt one troll or another will soon prove the point for me. Education, not memorizing lessons or mastering multiple choice exam strategies, but Education must be accomplished within the person, and though skilled Teachers and Masters can transmit the relevant information, true education, setting ones self free, can only be accomplished by the individual, within the individual. The good news is that most students when taught by fine teachers, will lessen their own resistance to their lessons... but in the end they are the ones who accomplish it.

As Magnus said,

"In other words, all revelation is direct revelation. Anything less is mere knowledge. Not necessarily a bad thing, but an entirely different realm."

and Ilion,

"the revelation we've already been given must come alive in one's own person to be of any benefit to one; and when it does come alive, it is as a direct revelation."

Stepping back a measure, I'll say that is true of all Truth (and all Truth is One). All real knowledge integrates, but the number of integrations made, the amount of spark the connection carries depends upon how conscious you are of your choices, the awareness you supply to the circuit, in order to complete it. Any knowledge has the potential of channeling torrents of Truth, or merely a trickle, it depends upon the amperage you give of yourself to the connection, a fuse able to channel 1,000 amps, or merely 1 amp.

I'm sure we've all had the experience of some mundane happening triggering some deep, deep understanding which had no 'real' tie to the event in question. It can come in the form of a monk whacking the pupil on the head with his staff, or of grasping 3rd normal form in relational database table design, or scripture itself... but whatever the medium, the medium isn't the message, your understanding and your willingness to understand it, is.

It is in our choices we make, that we open ourselves up to participate in Truth, on whatever level it may seem to be concerned with. It must be actively touched and bridged in order to become living truth within the mind, without your attentive choice integrating, serving as the switch which completes a circuit, the floodlight bulb may dim to just a flicker.

I think one aspect of the Transfiguration is the representation of how revelation occurs, potentially, in each and all of us. Elijah and Moses passed the baton, much as Magnus describes for the dissemination of revelation in the horizontal plane.

As for Kipling and nothing new under the sun, clearly that is true but also, I think, untrue. There is an ascent of man, a direction toward an end point, and free will and expanded awareness are central to that journey. Free will seems integrally linked to life itself.

As such, the demise (or at least the containment) of the left, which is the antithesis of free will on so many levels, is as important to the progress of humanity as a whole as is the transcendence of denial, say, for an individual.

My sense, and maybe it's just a hope, is that you are wrong, Van, and that something substantive is taking place currently. That the filtering down of awareness and dissemination of revelatory wisdom is being facilitated in a new way by a more open marketplace than has ever existed on this plane.

Even without such enriched communication, there have been times in history when the primacy of natural law and individual freedom held sway long enough for, in particular, the miracle of this country to occur.

The Axelrod character above has demonstrated how the serpent should once again be caged -- it/they will marginalize itself/themselves through hubris. Then it will be for the rest of us to wipe the materialism-induced cobwebs out of our eyes and facilitate the next step (probably with a lot of help from necessity bred by increasing scarcity).

Ilion said "Let us hope, surely. ;)"Really?Mushroom said "My sense, and maybe it's just a hope, is that you are wrong, Van, and that something substantive is taking place currently"et tu Brute?

;- )

Me? Really?

My comment must read a lot gloomier on other screens than mine. Come on now, I'm the one who has been saying for over a year that something IS beginning to happen here, that people are coming out of their apathy and getting involved, I've said several times that over the last twenty years I could count on one hand (actually one finger) the number of people I've met who responded to my trying to discuss Locke, Federalist Papers, Constitution but in the last year when I bring it up (when they haven't brought it up themselves) I'm into a conversation and people are actually asking where they can find out more about such things as Natural Law, etc.

"As for Kipling and nothing new under the sun, clearly that is true but also, I think, untrue."

I wouldn't be involved in the Tea Parties if I didn't think there was not a real chance of people wanting to inform and re-form themselves and the nation... and I'm spending a heck of a lot of time helping them to do just that.

My point in the previous comment was only that hoping that the reactionary response alone will carry meaningful change, that is folly. It is a useful attention grabber to be sure, but unless it is followed by true Education there will be no Revelation or lasting change, and I think that was Kipling's point also... when you stop studying, educating, revealing... terror and slaughter return.

Come on guys, if there was any truth to 'nothing new under the sun' there never would have been a United States of America in the first place.

Cheer up, we are making a difference, right now... how much... we'll see... but whether that 'how much' is enough, I'll bet it depends a lot on what each one of us are doing to make that difference.

From River's link:"... and you get good points for making such good choices shopping and then you get home and your daughter's like 'Ooh look! I got my report card!' and you're like 'Good Job!' and you're getting 2,000 pts from the state for getting such good grades, and, heh, you're getting 5,000 pts as a parent for the Obamao bonus for the good parenting bonus cause you can like use that as tax relief and... and then you're like 'wait a minute, did you practice your piano?' and she's like 'yeah I practiced my piano' and you're like 'What score did you get?', 'well I got 150,000', and you're like '150,000! that's the best you've ever had on that particular sonata! That's 9,000 pts given by the arts council for your scholarship for you... it's possible that they will lead us to be better people if the game systems are designed right...."

He is dead (in more ways than one) serious too. This isn't just from a Tech head, it's modernism in it's best light possible, and leads to life lived as Pavlov's dog, aspiring to live in slicker more sparkly kennels.

Mr. D said "Detachment. That's the word. A certain cool detachment is a formidable spiritual power."

Detachment. Hmm. There is certainly the ideal of not allowing yourself to be carried away by your emotions... that you are... something like 'in control', but that can go the wrong way too... that they are ordered within your life, they serve you and serve their purposes but do not drive you.

But detachment? Always struck me as an artificially imposed control, revealing that those emotions have more control over you via your opposition to them... something like two monks arguing over who is more humble than the other, or as Voltaire put it,

"Oh, what an extraordinary man!" said Candide, muttering to himself. "What a great genius is this Pococurante! nothing can please him."

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Who spirals down the celestial firepole on wings of slack, seizes the wheel of the cosmic bus, and embarks upin a bewilderness adventure of higher nondoodling? Who, haloed be his gnome, loiters on the threshold of the transdimensional doorway, looking for handouts from Petey? Who, with his doppelgägster and testy snideprick, Cousin Dupree, wields the pliers and blowtorch of fine insultainment for the ridicure of assouls? Who is the gentleman loaffeur who yoinks the sword from the stoned philosopher and shoves it in the breadbasket of metaphysical ignorance and tenure? Whose New Testavus for the Restavus blows the locked doors of the empyrean off their rusty old hinges and sheds a beam of intense darkness on the world enigma? Who is the Biggest Fakir of the Vertical Church of God Knows What, channeling the roaring torrent of 〇 into the feeble stream of cyberspace? Who is the masked pandit who lobs the first water balloon out the motel window at the annual Raccoon convention? Who is your nonlocal partner in disorganized crimethink? Shut your mouth! But I'm talkin' about bʘb! Then we can dig it!